CHILD protection chiefs sparked outrage yesterday for trying to clear social workers from blame after a four-year-old boy starved to death.

The decomposed body of Hamzah Khan was found in a cot at his home in Bradford, West Yorkshire, in 2011.

His alcoholic mother Amanda Hutton, 43 – who was known to social workers and had seven other children – was jailed for 15 years last month after being found guilty of manslaughter.

But yesterday a serious review into the tragedy prompted anger.

Professor Nick Frost, who chairs the Bradford Safeguarding Children Board, said: “The SCR is very clear that Hamzah’s death could not have been predicted but finds that systems, many of them national systems, let Hamzah down both before and following his death.”

But Children’s Minister Edward Timpson and the NSPCC rounded on the findings, saying the review “failed to explain” why social workers did not act and how Hamzah became in effect “an invisible child”.

Professor Nick Frost presents the review [PA]

Tragically, Hamzah became invisible, slipping off the radar of our entire society the moment he left hospital after birth

Peter Wanless, chief executive of the NSPCC

And constituency MP George Galloway stormed: “This so-called serious case review is social workers investigating themselves, which is totally unacceptable.”

He went on: “In particular, I am concerned that it fails to explain sufficiently clearly the actions taken, or not taken, by children’s social care when problems in the Khan family were brought to their attention on a number of occasions.” He said there had been repeated “missed opportunities” to protect all the children.

Hamzah was born on June 17, 2005, and seen by a health visitor three weeks later. It was the last time he was seen by a health professional.

Peter Wanless, chief executive of the NSPCC, said: “Tragically, Hamzah became invisible, slipping off the radar of our entire society the moment he left hospital after birth.

“We have to ask how this could happen in 21st century Britain.

Amanda Hutton was jailed for 15 years for the manslaughter of her son [PA]

“His mother made no attempt to register his birth; he missed midwife appointments, health visitor checks, immunisations; and he was never registered for school.

“A red flag must be raised when key appointments are missed so that children cannot disappear.

“It cannot be right that the first time someone took serious steps to track him down was six years after his birth by which time he was already dead.”

Bradford Crown Court was told last month that police found Hamzah’s mummified remains in his cot with a teddy two years after he died.